Posted on 08/14/2009 9:39:13 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Dick Durbin, you spoilsport.
The state's senior U.S. senator may (or may not) have made a wise decision to forego hosting health care town halls in his home state, but in any case he's denying us of a spectacle we deserve.
After all, who isn't dying to see how a relatively close, personal friend of the president (and the No. 2 man in the Senate as Harry Reid's assistant majority leader) would handle the (planted or not) mobs that would turn out to shout him down?
Some of those mobs may even be made up of liberals, now that Durbin has backed away from the public option portion of a health care reform bill that some leading Democrats say is worthless without it.
Dick Durbin would prefer to answer your questions in a more controlled environment. Given the blueness of Illinois, Durbin would likely be pelted from both sides.
What fun!
But there's a more serious dimension to Durbin's decision: Is he doing his constituents a disservice?
He's appears to have alredy lost one vote over the matter.
"I am sorry that I ever voted for you," T. Morgan comments at the State Journal-Register. "You owe me and every other voter out there a town hall; I supported you every time your name has appeared on the ballot, but that will not happen again."
And Morgan's the least vitriolic of the dissenters.
Durbin seems to claim he doesn't need a town hall to connect with voters on this topic.
I am prepared to answer any honest question from anyone in this state about this issue," Durbin says.
Okay. What's your number?
Oh, here it is: (312) 353-4952.
I'll pass it on to Mr. Morgan.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
Illinois Ping
I would like to see Biden do a town hall meeting as well that would be rich.
I heard on Cisco Cotto’s show this morning that there might be an effort to bring the town hall to Durbin — organizing a demonstration outside his downtown office.
Yeah. We would probably ‘inadvertently’ get the truth.
:)
Why don’t you giuys do the same thing as that other group and call a TownHall Meeting for him, invite him and if he doesn’t show up have an empty chair for him. Take lots of You Tube clips.
A great idea.
A group with sufficient funds could stage a mock townhall meeting with an empty stage asking Durbin questions.
That is what I have been waiting for!
Mike Ross held a 'town hall' meeting ON THE PHONE. Mark Pryor doesn't think he needs to hold one at all. Vic Snyder hid behind a bunch of sick kids at the Arkansas children's hospital and pretended to discuss health care.
These COWARDS just may get a shock of a lifetime come next election. I hope so anyway!
Chicago politics. He doesn’t need any townhalls when he’s got a fellow thug in the White House.
Dick has no balls.
It is Illinois. Their politicians don’t care what the general electorate says. So long as the machine is behind then they win.
You know Dick would be far away from that.
don' need no stinkin' voters when youze got Da Combine behind youze. (chicagospeak -- off)
A group with sufficient funds could stage a mock townhall meeting with an empty stage asking Durbin questions.
Oh, sure. But it might be a good way to underscore Durbin’s chickening out on meeting with his constituents. Now, of course, he could always cover himself by arranging for some fact-finding mission in some far corner of the world.
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